JAN.40 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER." 
' <41 
ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION. 
HENRY HALES. 
Nature is generally slow and sure in her 
methods of reproduction; man tries to be a 
little faster. He has domesticated poultry, 
and by care, selection and good feeding, he 
has brought hens to lay more eggs than they 
can possibly hatch themselves, furnishing him 
with a supply of food not to be excelled. But 
sometimes chickens are wanted more than 
etegs, and man’s iugeuuity has been taxed to 
And out how to turn those eggs into chicks 
without tho aid of that fickle, fussy bundle of 
flesh and feathers called a sitting hen. The 
problem is not a new one—it is as old as the 
pyramids themselves; but the Egyptians had 
a climate that did half tho work. With us the 
question is how to hatch and rear chicks at a 
time when the climate is very trying—early 
spring—so that chicks hatched at that time are 
nearly ready for the gridiron by the time 
others are beginning to pipe under their nat¬ 
ural mothers, or so that, if intended for show 
birds, they may be well developed in the fol¬ 
lowing fall. 
In comparing the advantages between natural 
and artificial incubation we must take into 
consideration the preparation, time and cost of 
each. In the former there is the cost of sitting 
hens, feeding them, the place they occupy, and 
the labor in caring for them during the period 
of incubation- Those who have had any ex¬ 
perience in the latter performance know well 
the patience required for regulating their un¬ 
ruly, capricious perversities; for of all things 
domesticated, nothing is more provoking than 
an intractable sitting hen, shifting from one 
nest to another, staying off too long, or, if you 
shut her down, when you peep in you will find 
her as the Dutchman did, sitting "standing 
up." Who in looking after the sitters, has not 
experienced that "olfactory ” treat of cleaning 
a fouled nest of broken eggs, generally caused 
by the blundering sitting heu ? There Is cer¬ 
tainly uo reason why vermin should be there, 
for a little care will proveut that, but it all takeB 
time. After the hen has brought, off her brood, 
in all natural history there is no more inter¬ 
esting sight, //she happens to be a good, sen¬ 
sible mother ; but too rnauy prove to bo other¬ 
wise. Her very zeal endangers her offsprings 
as she dashes at every supposed enemy, or per¬ 
haps (which is very common), she drabbles her 
little ones through all kinds of weather, early 
and late, over wet grass or under a scorching 
sun; or, if cooped up, she keeps up such a con¬ 
tinual scratching and jumping as to destroy 
the objects of her solicitude. 
Then there is the calculation which only ex¬ 
perience can decide as to the gain or loss in tho 
health of chicks as raised naturally or arti¬ 
ficially. Some assert that the latter escape 
the constitutional weakness and parasitic ten¬ 
dency of the hen. owing to the improved, 
warmed, artificial mothers. This may be true, 
but certainly not unless great care is given to 
the warming, cleansing, etc. Many evils are 
certaiuly avoided with the uew mothers, but 
with delicate breeds, or. I should say, with all 
except the hardy Asiatics, the natural warmth 
of the mother is a great desideratum. 
Iu deciding about tho use of incubators, 
the first considerations are :—the outlay for 
machine and artificial mothers; the space occu¬ 
pied by them ; the ontlay of oil for warming 
and of time m attending thorn; the percentage 
of chickens raised at a given price, at a certain 
time when the services of mothers would be 
dispensed with ; ami the sound, healthy consti¬ 
tution of the offsprings. Upon the results of 
these considerations will depend the relative 
advantage of natural and artificial hatching. 
“GOOD LUCK” IN POULTRY KEEPING. 
‘‘You’ve had prime good luck with your 
chickens, ha’n’t ye ?” I was so busy cleaning 
my hen house that 1 hardly noticed the coming 
of the neighbor from whom the voice came. 
Now, I looked up. “Yes." I said, “first-rate 
luck; raised every chick that left the shell." 
"Wall,” he replied, “that’s jest the wav, 
some folks always do seem to have luck, hut 
I never did. Hem? lay any?” “Yes," I re¬ 
plied. “my pullets are laying from four to six 
eggs a day.” “Only see!” he said, “I must 
have your breed of fowls." “ All right," I re¬ 
plied, “but yon must also get a comfortable 
place for your hens, and give them the same 
care and management that mine get, and then 
I think your hens will lay as well.” 
As he walked away I fell to cleaning the 
room again, and to thinking wherein my 
“luck" consisted. Iu the first place. I had 
the " good luck" to have clean, comfortable 
coops for my chickens; second, I bad the 
“ good luck" to see to it that they were fed 
strangers ; they have a superstition that it is 
unfortunate to do bo. If a few colonies of 
Cyprians were first to be brought to some 
place in Italy or Germany, and then bred for 
further exportation to this country, grave 
doubts of their purity might well be entertain¬ 
ed. To the casual observer there is but little 
difference in appearauce between Cyprian aud 
Italian bees, but on turning them over, the 
Cyprians are found to be bright yellow on the 
under side of the body, which the Italians are 
not Professor A. J. Cook, of Michigan, has 
akomade some careful measurements of the 
tongues of the two races, and at a recent visit 
to this office the Professor stated that he had 
found a remarkable uniformity in the length 
of the tongues of Italians, all measuring 25 
hundredths of an inch, while the tongues of 
Cyprian bees varied greatly, some measuring 
2i* hundredths and others only 24 hundredths 
of an inch. This circumstance led him to 
doubt that the bees were perfectly pure. 
We hope that this effort to introduce Cyp- 
We have received a prospectus of the Ameri¬ 
can Entomologist, a monthly to be edited by 
Chas. V. Riley assisted by A. S. Fuller. Pro¬ 
fessor Riley is competent to make this work 
of great service to all who are interested in 
Entomology. AIL business letters to be ad¬ 
dressed to the publisher. Max Jaegerhuber. 323 
Pearl St., New York city. Sample copies 20 
ceDts —52.00 per year. 
Plant Seed Company, 812 and 814 North 
Fourth St.. St. Louie, Mo. A large catalogue 
of 82 pages Eearly Amber cane, all sorts of 
field seeds and roots—spring wheats. Clawson, 
Fultz. Red May. Diehl, fall wheats—Blount’s 
White Prolific corn ; flower and vegetable seeds 
generally. Sent free to applicants. 
Report of the Commissioner of Fish and 
Fisheries for the year 1877. This volume of 
981 pages is a valuable mino of information 
with regard to all questions relating to the 
finny tribeB as food for the human family. 
§ JOHNSTON HARVESTEU~CO’S. PRIZE VAS E. — FIG. 13. 
gularly with corn-meal buckwheat and oat? 
id corn ground together; and. thirdly, I 
id the “good luck" to furnish them with 
ean, pure water, and safe quarters for the 
ght, secure from prowling skunks or ma- 
.uding rats. The fact is that most of the 
good luck” in chicken raising is simply the 
isult of good management and careful, per- 
stent industry. John H. Severson. 
Albany Co., N. Y. 
Various. 
nan bees may not only prove a success to 
those who undertake it, but that the bees may 
prove a valuable acquisition to the rapidly 
expanding business of honey production. 
CATALOGUES, ETC., RECEIVED. 
At every international Exposition held in 
Europe, American agricultural machinery has 
won high distinction, but at that of Pans in 
1878, it achieved an overwhelming victory over 
all competitors. In no department was this su¬ 
periority more roauifest than in thatof practical 
field trials, for exceptional merit in which twelve 
special prizes in the 6hape of twelve objects of 
art—Sevres vases—were offered. Of those seven 
were won by Americans,one by a French exhibi¬ 
tor of an American machine, two by French ex¬ 
hibitors of home-made machines, one by an 
English exhibitor, and the twelfth was not 
awarded, as no sufficiently meritorious com¬ 
petitor appeared for it. Although it is doubt¬ 
ful whether any field trial excelled that of 
reapers in importance, only one ot the dozen 
prizes was offered for that class of machines. 
As thirty-five of the best reapers iu the world 
contended for this, the honor of bearing it awav 
was all the more distinguished. This honor 
fell to the lot of the Johnston Harvester Com¬ 
pany, of Brockton, N. Y., who have lately re¬ 
ceived the splendid prize represented in the 
accompanying engraving. 
The. vase is of tazza form, ten inches high, 
® the bowl being three inches deep and fourteen 
and a half inches wide across the top. The 
prevailing color outside is blue and gold; in¬ 
side s re panels of scroll work, tritons and 
trefoils, with a circular band in gold. The 
center is ornamented by a raised medallion 
emblematic of the city of Pari*—a female head 
with a battlemented mural crown. The me¬ 
dallion is encircled with scrolls, rosettes, 
fruits, wheat ears aud other agricultural sym¬ 
bols. Outside arouud the body of the vase is 
a wreath of flowers, fruits aud grain, with a 
spiral pink band bearing the legend “Exposi¬ 
tion Universelle, Paris, 1878.” The pillar is 
blue and gold highly ornamented. Four pan¬ 
els in a circular band on the foot contain re¬ 
spectively the words “Sevres," “ Paris," “Ex- 
--—- 
The Special Prize for Harvesters at the Paris 
Exposition of 1878. 
fljt Apiarian. 
INTRODUCTION OF CYPRIAN BEES. 
There has been much curiosity manifested of 
late as to the value of Cyprian bees for our 
American apiaries. The Italian bee, it is true, 
has met with universal favor, aud by general 
consent has beeu prououuced superior to any 
other kuown race. But it is not iu the nature 
of American bee-keepers to let well enough 
alone. They must be progressing. With true 
Yankee spirit they are ever on the look-out 
for something better, forever experimenting, 
perfecting, Investigating. Aud a very com¬ 
mendable spirit it is. It is this characteristic 
that has already led them to produce the best 
hives, the best extractors, the best smokers, 
and the best bee-literature in the world, and 
Btill die cry is onward. Cypriau bees are said 
to be on trial in one or two apiaries iu the 
country already, but there is a shadow of 
doubt as to their purity, aud to pronounce 
upon their value as compared with the Italians 
might therefore be premature. 
There are now good prospects, however, that 
this question will soon be settled. Mr. D. A. 
Jones, the noted bee-keeper of Beeton, On¬ 
tario, aud Mr. Frank Benton, a recent gradu¬ 
ate of Michigan Agricultural College, are 
about t» embark for Cyprus, where, after 
having made themselves acquainted with the 
people, surrounding cireumsiauces, etc,, they 
iutend to locate au apiary and breed bees tor 
exportation to this couutry, Mr. Benton is to 
have charge of the apiary in Cyprus, anil 
send the bees to Mr. Jones, who. iu order to 
keep them pure, will continue their propaga¬ 
tion ou au island iu Lake Huron, several miles 
from shore, where there is uo possibility of 
their mixing with auy other bees. This plau 
seems to be the only oue whereby bees can be 
imported direct from Cyprus, as the good folk 
I of that island refuse to sell their bees to 
The Flowers aud Ferns of the United States, 
by Thomas MeehaR. Published by the Ameri¬ 
can Natural History Publishiug Co., Philadel¬ 
phia, Penn. 
We are now iu receipt of parts 9, 10, 11, aud 
12 of Volume 1st, second series, aud they 
strike us as even of more iuterest than any of 
their predecessors, ft should t>c borne in mind 
that though each part is oue of a comprehen¬ 
sive work, each part is iu itself complete. We 
have uo reason to suppose that the work is not 
meeting with an appreciation alike gratifying 
to its well-known editor and the publishers. 
We should be sorry if this were not so, because 
the work in all respects is oue that should 
forcibly commeud itself to every lover of the 
wild plants of our country. It is a work of 
great beauty—the botauy is trustworthy ; the 
colored plates are drawn from nature with 
remarkable accuracy, and the dcscriptious are 
written in an easy, plain manner that renders 
them interesting to the beginner as well as to 
the skillful botanist. Our words of praise are 
positive and we mean them so to Lie. There is 
uot one of our readers who purchases this work 
tlmt will eyer reproach us for having so in¬ 
fluenced him. The price is extremely low. 
Indeed it is this alone which makes us solici¬ 
tous lest it may not meet with the extensive 
patronage which alone can secure its continued 
publication from year to year until tbe most 
important plants of our couutry shall have 
been drawn and described. Address all ques¬ 
tions to the publishers who will auswer 
promptly. 
W. B. Jones, Herndon, Ga., Price-list of 
field and garden seeds. Besides many sorts of 
seeds adapted exclusively to a SouLhcrn clim¬ 
ate, we notice seeds cf Pearl (Cut-Ta’l ) Millet 
offered (cleaned) at 15 cents per pound l>y the 
bushel; also Minnesota Early Amber cane 
seed—Doura, Ac. The Doura, however, is not 
the variety of which we wrote a few weeks 
since, as we judge from the description. 
Price-list free to applicants. 
position," "1878.” 
Tbe money value of this unique work is 
about 1000 fruncs, but this is a mere nothing 
as compared to its worth as a lasting testi¬ 
monial of the practical excellence of the ma¬ 
chine that won it from so many able rivals 
in a contest to which the attention of the 
agricultural world was directed. 
--♦ -*->- 
American Butter Color at the London Dairy 
Show. 
It was my honor and pleasure, as steward of 
butter aud cheese implements, to have charge 
of the collection of American utensils exhibited 
at our late show in London, in conjunction 
with my friend Prof. J. P. Sheldon. 
I must thank VYells, Richardson & Co. for 
the liberal gift of samples of their Perfected 
Butter Color which I have spread over a great 
area for trial—some going to South America, 
a sample to Russia, another to Norway, etc. 
I brought to my home some small and large 
bottles giving the former to friends who are 
thoroughly in love with it. I have always ob¬ 
jected to ordinary anuailo preparations, be¬ 
cause they give an unnatural reddish tint, 
whereas properly colored butter, however large 
the amount of color used, should he a clear 
yellow. The nearer we can approach the 
color of Australian or pale gold, the more 
natural is the color and the better pleased is 
tho consumer. Our people demand color, but 
they do not like unnatural tints. 
Now, so far as L ean judge by a few practical 
experiments, I have never met with any color 
equal to the Perfected Butter Color and 1 con¬ 
gratulate Wells, Richardson ifc Cc*. upon their 
success iu its production. 1 believe there is a 
good opening for it iu Englaad. aud that it 
may be got into use In Denmark. Sweden. 
Norway, Germany, and France where, as 
doubtless you know, they have an immense 
trade iu butter. John Olive. 
London, Eng. 
